Monday, October 07, 2013

Monday Morning Links

- Thomas Walkom sees Stephen Harper's approval of dove hunting as an ideal metaphor for the gratuitous violence of his government:

The wildlife service
also estimates that new hunting rules will result in about 18,000
Ontario doves being shot each year. But, say hunt aficionadas, so what?
There are plenty more.

As the Conservatives would tell you: This is our world. Other species are born into it at their own risk.

To Canada’s governing
party, killing doves is a metaphor for sound thinking, fiscal sobriety
and doughnut-shop values. It is where the Harperites want to be.
...
To reconcile these
competing metaphors is not easy. In Israel, Canada’s prime minister is
the dove’s friend. He supports this wonderful bird root and branch. His
ideals are lofty, his vision clear.

But back home in
Canada, his relationship to the dove is quite different. Back home,
Stephen J. Harper is the dove’s sworn enemy. Back home, his government
wants to see a good chunk of these damned birds dead.

- Reuters reports that Switzerland will soon be voting on the type of universal income security that's been all too thoroughly excluded from discuss by the chattering classes in Canada.

- But at home, the Cons are still the main obstacle looming in the way of even modest CPP reforms to make sure that seniors have a reasonable standard of living.

- Erin Weir reminds us of the need for fair royalties to ensure that the oil industry can't siphon billions of dollars worth of public resources out of Saskatchewan while paying as little as penny on the dollar.